Exchange nonexistent recipients must not be blocked.
An XCCDF Rule
Description
<VulnDiscussion>Spam originators, in an effort to refine mailing lists, sometimes use a technique where they first create fictitious names and then monitor rejected emails for nonexistent recipients. Those not rejected are deemed to exist and are used in future spam mailings. To prevent this disclosure of existing email accounts to spammers, email to nonexistent recipients must not be blocked. Instead, it is recommended that all messages be received, then evaluated and disposed of without enabling the sender to determine existent versus nonexistent recipients.</VulnDiscussion><FalsePositives></FalsePositives><FalseNegatives></FalseNegatives><Documentable>false</Documentable><Mitigations></Mitigations><SeverityOverrideGuidance></SeverityOverrideGuidance><PotentialImpacts></PotentialImpacts><ThirdPartyTools></ThirdPartyTools><MitigationControl></MitigationControl><Responsibility></Responsibility><IAControls></IAControls>
- ID
- SV-259613r961161_rule
- Severity
- Medium
- References
- Updated
Remediation - Manual Procedure
Open the Exchange Management Shell and enter the following command:
Set-RecipientFilterConfig -RecipientValidationEnabled $false